


full consent of the will

by whitchry9



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Catholicism, Confessions, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 10:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20388427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: Matt’s pretty sure that Foggy is in love with him. But Matt doesn't deserve to be loved by anyone, and certainly not Foggy.





	full consent of the will

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katbelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katbelle/gifts).

> I used two of the prompts, sort of smushed together.  
The song "Arcade" by Duncan Laurence and the quote "We accept the love we think we deserve." - Stephen Chbosky, Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Matt’s pretty sure that Foggy is in love with him.

He’s been pretty sure since the second week of law school, as if their first meeting wasn’t enough to clue him in. But in the second week of law school, when Foggy gets a lot more drunk than Matt, and as a result has a wicked hangover when they’re supposed to be heading to an 8am lecture on criminal law, Matt hands him a bottle of water and three aspirin, and Foggy says ‘oh my God I love you man’.

And his heart doesn’t change at all.

So yeah, Matt’s pretty sure, because the evidence keeps piling up.

Foggy’s had boyfriends, at about the same rate as he’s had girlfriends. They come and go at about the same rate, with the exception of Marci, who is in her own category entirely.

The worst thing about Marci is that she apparently knows. She hints at it. Asks Matt if he wants to join them in bed, as if three of them would even fit in an undersized dorm bed.

They end up at a shitty party in their final year of law school, and they’re playing spin the bottle for whatever reason. It might have been Marci’s idea, because she and Foggy aren’t dating at the moment, and haven’t been for months maybe, Matt can’t recall, because everyone is pretty drunk. Even he’s pretty drunk, and he’s probably the least drunk out of all of them.

Marci went first and ended up kissing a guy that Matt thinks might be named Chad or Brad or Thad… Whatshisname ended up kissing a girl that Matt had worked on a group project with named Lucille. She was nice and competent. Lucille ended up kissing Foggy.

Foggy spun the bottle and when it stopped, no one said anything, but Foggy’s heart started beating faster.

“Ooh,” Marci whispers. “Your turn Matt.”

Ah. That would explain Foggy’s panic. Excitement? No way to tell.

Foggy tastes like rum and coke and something else underneath, vaguely minty. His lips are soft and he presses them to Matt’s with a tenderness that makes Matt want to scream. He doesn’t know how long it lasts. Probably less time than it feels like, because no one comments on it taking long minutes.

He lets go of Matt’s face, and how did he not notice that before, how, and sits back on his heels, heart still fluttering. If Matt chose to listen to his, it would be doing the same, because he can feel it in his throat.

“Your turn Matt!” Marci says brightly. Matt suspects she’s less drunk than she seemed to be.

He ends up kissing someone he thinks is named Alex, and it’s nothing like kissing Foggy. None of the people he kisses that night, or any night after that, are like kissing Foggy.

(Even Elektra.)

It would be so easy to let himself fall in love with Foggy. (He might have already, even if he refuses to admit it.) It would be so easy to let Foggy know that his feelings were requited. But Foggy seems to labour under the illusion that Matt’s Catholicism means he won’t even entertain the idea of loving someone of the same gender, despite the fact that Matt hasn’t gone to church in years and has never said anything when Foggy brought home male partners.

But if Foggy thinks Catholicism is keeping them apart, Matt is perfectly happy to let him continue believing that. It’s easier than the truth, which is that he doesn’t deserve to be loved. Not by anyone, but certainly not by Foggy.

Because Matt’s no good. He knows that, intimately, years before his hands are literally or metaphorically coated with blood. He’s a Murdock, after all.

And Foggy is so deeply _good _that Matt fears even touching him will taint him somehow.

So he pretends he doesn’t know that Foggy is pining.

He assumes that Foggy will move past it, that they’d stay as friends, because they worked well as friends. Matt knows that too often, changing a relationship can ruin it, and he doesn’t want that for him and Foggy, even if he does think that it would be nice to kiss him, to belong to him in a way that is downright biblical. (Even if the church has a few choice things to say about that kind of relationship that Matt largely disregards, because he’s read the bible and he can’t conceive of a God that would hate anyone for a thing like that. For other things, sure.)

And they do. They start a firm together. Foggy continues to believe that Matt is straight, just because women tend to fawn over him like some sort of cute animal.

(Matt hasn’t been in a relationship since Elektra, and that was only because Elektra was just like him, broken and dangerous and undeserving of love from people who they could destroy. He’s brought people home since then, but only for a night.)

Maybe he only wants to believe Foggy is in love with him because it makes him redeemable.

(Sometimes he lays in bed at night, bruised and bloody but unable to sleep, thinking about what he would do if Foggy ever admitted his feelings. He wants to think that he’d be able to lie through his teeth, tell Foggy sorry, but he didn’t feel the same way. He wants to think he’d be able to let Foggy down easily, that nothing would change in their relationship. He thinks that it wouldn’t go that well, that he’d be unable to lie convincingly, that he’d end up blurting out that he’s loved Foggy for years and never told him. He’s terrified that he won’t be able to hold back the words if Foggy asks him outright.

He’s even more terrified that Foggy already knows, and doesn’t say anything out of kindness.)

Claire tells him he’ll end up bloody and alone, but what she doesn’t realize is that he already is. Because after Foggy finds out what he does, who he is, he leaves without looking back.

Matt tries to not be disappointed, tries to not let it crush him, but he still ends up in tears on the couch. He blames the pain and blood loss for the emotions, and not the emptiness aching in his chest. Foggy never should have loved him, and this is what he deserves.

(Bloody and alone.)

Ben is killed. It turns out Foggy has been using Marci to get evidence to take Fisk down. They start something tentative, uneasy in order to find the final pieces of the puzzle.

Then Fisk escapes, and Matt is telling Foggy to trust him (please, please) and thanking Melvin for his new costume, and he is standing in front of Fisk armed with his anger and disappointment.

“You were right,” he tells Fisk. “Not everyone deserves a happy ending.”

Fisk, of course, thinks Matt is talking about him, which is true, but Matt is also talking about himself. There is no happy ending for Matt Murdock. He should have known this ages ago, but he tried to fool himself. But now that Foggy knows, well, Matt can’t lie to himself anymore.

“This city doesn’t deserve a better tomorrow. It deserves to burn in its filth. It deserves my father, people like you.”

Now that might be true. This city made Matt, and he is undoubtedly a product of it. Maybe this city does deserve him. Either way, it has him.

Matt just knows it doesn’t need people like Fisk.

* * *

Things don’t go back to normal after that, simply because there’s no way they can. Foggy knows too many of Matt’s secrets, and Karen has too many of her own. Matt suspects that something terrible happened, and hates that she doesn’t want to share with them, but can’t exactly blame her. It’s not like he’s been very present lately.

The city calls him Daredevil, and Foggy thinks the name is silly, and the horns are ridiculous, but he’s still speaking to Matt, so he can’t complain. Ben and Elena are still dead, but Fisk is in prison awaiting trial. Matt hasn’t committed a mortal sin, and makes a note to go see his priest soon.

* * *

Foggy comes over to pick him up. They’re supposed to be going out for drinks to celebrate. Like old times, Foggy had said. Karen declined, something broken in her voice.

Foggy knocks and then lets himself in.

“I just have to finish changing,” Matt calls from the bedroom.

Foggy stands in the doorway, which is still broken. Matt really needs to get that fixed.

“Cracking skulls?” he asks, taking in Matt’s outfit.

Matt finishes unzipping the Daredevil suit and extracts himself. “Just had an errand to run.”

He throws on a shirt that he’d left on his bed, and the pants he’d worn that day, and brushes past Foggy to the closet to stuff the suit into the chest.

When he turns around, Foggy is staring at him. Matt wonders what his face looks like, what his exact expression is. Regret? Guilt? Disappointment?

“Look Foggy, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made you see me like that. I know it’s not exactly your favourite subject right now and I should have kept better track of time.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Foggy says hoarsely. His heart doesn’t change but it still sounds like he’s lying.

Matt frowns. “No, I mean it. I’m sorry.”

“Matt, forget about it. You’re forgiven.”

And there’s something in that word that makes Matt _ache. _Something deeply wrong and unsettling and impossible. He can’t let that go.

Matt shakes his head. “You know what I do. Who I am.”

Foggy nods. He thinks about saying something, but doesn’t.

“How can you possibly forgive me? How could you even consider forgiving me? What makes you think I’m even _worthy_ of forgiveness?”

Foggy scoffs. “You act like you’re some horrible person, that you’re not even worthy of basic human kindness, but that’s so wrong. You’re a deeply good person, and I don’t know how to convince you of that. You get up every morning and fight an unjust universe because you think you can make a dent. Which might be arrogant, but it’s the kind of arrogance that you make work, as a lawyer, and as a vigilante, and as a friend. My _best _friend. So yeah I’m angry. I’m going to be angry for a while. I won’t always trust you, because you’ve demonstrated a remarkable history of deceit, and it’s going to take you a while to build up any amount of trust, but you’re still my friend. And you’re forgiven.”

“Friend?” Matt echoes.

The doubt must be evident on his face, because Foggy blushes.

“I mean, yeah. I guess you might have suspected it was something more, now that I know about your supersenses, but I’m fine with being friends.”

Matt has dreamt about this moment. Matt has had nightmares about this moment. Matt has played out this moment dozens of times, hoping that he’d be able to let Foggy down easily, deny any emotions, _lie. _He’s feared that the words would spill out of his mouth, betraying him.

“I’m…” he trails off. He can’t make another word come out.

He can imagine how Foggy is filling in the blank. _Not _g_ay. Not interested. Sorry. Straight. Catholic. So sorry, God Foggy, I’m so sorry but I don’t feel the same way. _

“I can’t,” he says instead. He wants to flee. That’s how he deals with most of these situations. Punching or fleeing. Or arguing, but Foggy would meet him toe to toe on that one.

Foggy might see him thinking about it, because he grabs Matt around the wrists and squeezes. Instead of being constricting, it’s reassuring, comforting.

“Matt,” Foggy says softly. “Please. Talk to me. I think that’s how we got into some of these problems, by not talking about them. Even if you’re not interested in being anything more than friends, that’s okay. I’m a big boy. I can take it.” He smiles at Matt.

The dam breaks.

“I can’t. I’m not worthy. Sometimes I think that you shouldn’t even be touching me, because I’m so deeply unholy and I can’t help but think my touch will spread to you. There’s something _dark _in me, something dangerous. My grandmother knew it. It’s what killed my father, and it’s probably going to kill me sooner than later, and I don’t want you to have to deal with that. I’m not worthy of kindness, let alone affection, and certainly not from you. You have no idea how much blood I have on my hands, because if you did you wouldn’t be touching them. I can’t love you, no matter how much I want to, because you are so _good _and I can’t do that to you.”

Foggy doesn’t say anything for a minute, just stands there, hands still wrapped around Matt’s wrists. Matt can feel the pulse in them. It hasn’t changed.

“When I was in the first grade the class fish died when I had it for the weekend and instead of telling my class that, I made my dad take me out to get a replacement. In fifth grade I punched a kid in my class who called my best friend a fag. When I was in ninth grade I tried smoking for the first time and nearly coughed up a lung. Two weeks after I got my driver’s license I ran a red light and got out of the ticket by crying. One time in college I ate so many weed brownies I lost two whole days. In law school I fell in love with my roommate and never told him. A few weeks ago I beat up a man with a baseball bat because he was following one of my friends. Matthew, there is blood on my hands too, and I am nowhere near as good as you think I am.”

He wants to protest, to say that none of those are as bad as the things he’s done, beat a man who abused his daughter, tortured a cop, left someone for dead… abandoned a friend in his time of need.

But he can’t because he’s stuck on one single thing Foggy said.

_In law school I fell in love with my roommate and never told him. _

“You fell in love with me?” Matt asks. He can’t bring himself to think that Foggy loves him, merely that he fell _in love _with him, because there is a distance between those two that he can’t quantify, but is significant.

“Almost immediately,” Foggy admits. “Not sure if you could tell.”

“Handsome wounded duck,” Matt recalls.

Foggy nods. “I was terrified you were going to leave right then and there. God you were so beautiful.”

“I wasn’t sure until the second week,” Matt says, ignoring that comment, because he doesn’t know how to process it. “You were hungover, and I gave you aspirin, and you said-”

“I love you man.”

Matt taps Foggy’s chest over his heart. “No change.”

“No lie,” Foggy confirms. “I do love you. And if you don’t love me the same way, that’s fine. But I think you have some love for me, even if it’s not the romantic kind. And I can live with that. I can live with whatever you’ve got for me, because you’re important to me.”

“I love you,” Matt blurts out. It sounds like confession, but if this is a sin, it’s one he’ll proudly bear. No Hail Mary’s, no Acts of Contrition. Just him and Foggy, under the eyes of God.

Foggy’s heart sings as he kisses him, and it’s just as good as the first one, something no other kiss has ever been able to live up to.

Maybe Matt’s no good, and maybe Foggy is the best person he’s ever met, even if he’s not perfect. But perhaps Matt’s touch won’t make Foggy dirty, and instead Foggy’s touch will redeem him.

Or maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe Matt doesn’t need to be loved to be redeemable, but it certainly does help. And their love might destroy him, but Matt would bet that it would be the most beautiful destruction.

He can’t wait to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> Title relates to the Catholic concept of a 'mortal sin', which requires full consent of the will, aka knowing that what you're doing is a sin but choosing to do it anyway.


End file.
